Concept
Alexander Leonidovich Dvorkin (Алекса́ндр Леони́дович Дво́ркин; born 20 August 1955 in Moscow) is a Russian anti-cult activist. From 1999 to 2012 he was professor and head of the department of the study of new religious movements (cults) at Saint Tikhon's Orthodox University. He is currently professor of department of missiology at that university. Dvorkin received his secondary education at schools No. 25, 91 and 112 in Moscow. After graduation from school grade 10, in 1972, he became a student in the Faculty of Russian Language and Literature of Moscow Pedagogical Institute. During his studies he joined the hippy movement. Dvorkin sets out two completely different versions of why he never graduated from the institute. According to Dvorkin's book Teachers and Lessons: Memories, Stories, Reflections ("Учителя и уроки: воспоминания, рассказы, размышления"), together with the like-minded people, he prepared a work that was demonstrated on 20 September 1975 at an exhibition of avant-garde artists in one of the pavilions of the VDNKh; about this work and its authors – a group of hippies called "Hair", to which Dvorkin was close – American magazine Time responded positively. Consequently, in Fall 1975, Dvorkin was expelled from the third year of the institute "for believers incompatible with those that should be in the future Soviet teacher". According to Dvorkin's book My America ("Моя Америка"), he was not admitted to the fifth examination session and was expelled from the institute for poor academic performance and non-attendance in early 1975. Remembering the exhibitions, he does not name them among the reasons for exclusion. On 6 March 1977 Dvorkin emigrated from the USSR on an Israeli visa. He did not go to Israel, but went to the United States. He worked as a courier, waiter, copyist. In 1978, Dvorkin became a student at Hunter College, where he continued to study Russian literature. Dvorkin was baptized on 19 January 1980 in Christ the Savior Church, a New York parish of the Orthodox Church in America.
